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The Biggie?

While another weak weather system deposits additional dustings to the region tonight for the countless time in the last week, all eyes are focused on the snowstorm potential for Friday into Saturday morning.  It's been two years since Boston saw a 10" or more snowstorm and the chances are escalating for that streak to end as we head into the weekend.

Two packets of energy are at play here, one entering British Columbia, Canada and the other sliding through Northern Mexico to our south.  The key to the evolution of this storm is how these two features interact and it now looks like they will do a complete merge in our coastal waters resulting in a large Nor'easter.  At this point we are trying to pinpoint the exact track...which will ultimately dictate how much snow we see.  Today's computer guidance paints a huge storm potential from the top of the storm to the bottom, here are all the ingredients:  Several thousands of feet in the air, the right, rear section of the jetstream will be in the perfect location to evacuate air and create a significant upward moving column of air necessary for strengthening the storm.  In the mid-levels of the atmosphere a pocket of very cold air will be slowing down creating an unstable environment leading to additional rising air and a stalling surface low.  A few thousand feet above the ground (850mb) a well-defined circulation will create intense overrunning precip (a snow-making machine) directed right at Southern New England.  Finally, a strong cold high pressure system to our north and a deepening surface low to our south that would suck in the cold air to it's center locking the cold into most of New England for the duration of the event.

Clearly, there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle to get the perfect set-up, but right now those pieces are falling into place and a snowstorm capable of producing over a foot of snow is on the table and very possible.  This is not meant to create hype but simply to let you know what is possible.  The next 24 hours will be critical as we narrow down the details so please stay tuned.

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